Christmas in Palestine

Bethlehem is beautiful at Christmas. The streets are festooned
with lights and decorations, the restaurants and cafés are crowded, and the
local shops do a roaring trade in trinkets, icons and glittery tat for the visiting
hordes of tourists and pilgrims.

Most visitors quickly find
themselves at the Church of the Nativity, which according to some Christians is
built on the exact spot where Jesus was born.

The church dates back to the
fourth century, making it one of the oldest surviving churches in the world.
Whatever your faith, it has a powerful atmosphere, almost undiminished by the
tidal waves of visitors who descend on Bethlehem at this time of year from all
over the world, including of course the Middle East.

There are some 15 million
Christians throughout the Middle East, and up to 90,000 Christians in Palestine. Christian Palestinians make up less than 2.4 per cent
of the overall population of Palestine, including a tiny population of around 3,500
Christians in the Gaza Strip. The Christians of Gaza are mostly Greek Orthodox,
but there are also several hundred Catholics, plus a smattering of Baptists.
Orthodox Christians officially celebrate Christmas according to the Julian
calendar, on 7 January, but every December hundreds of Gaza Christians apply
for permits to travel to Bethlehem
so they can celebrate Christmas in situ.

Last year 400 Gazan
Christians were permitted to leave the Strip and spend their Christmas in Bethlehem. 'It was stunning, just beautiful,' one of them,
Mara, told me when she came back home. The Christians who stayed in Gaza held their own Christmas services at the three
churches in Gaza City. I went to the packed Catholic mass on Christmas
morning last year, and remember being slightly stunned by the dozens of
photographers lining the back of the church, who relentlessly snapped pictures
of the congregation, especially while we were praying, until the priest
politely asked them all to leave. The Christians of Gaza had become one of the
big media stories of the season.

After the Hamas takeover of
the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Christians in Gaza were understandably nervous about what would happen
to them, given Hamas' overt Islamic agenda. Three months later their fears were
apparently confirmed when 32-year-old Rami Khader Ayyad, a Christian from Gaza City, was abducted, then shot and stabbed to death. Rami
Ayyad had been a Christian activist working in the only Christian bookshop in
the Gaza Strip, and his death stunned the entire Christian community. The press
wrote reams of stories about Christians being frightened, and desperate to
leave Gaza, and published photographs of them praying for peace
and tolerance in the Strip. No-one has ever been charged with Rami Ayyad's
murder.

When I moved to Gaza this time last year, I assumed the Christian
population was living in a state of fear of the Hamas regime, and were not free
to practise their faith. But I have spoken to Christians across the Gaza Strip
over these last 12 months and, almost without exception, they have told me that
the murder of Rami Ayyad was shocking and horrific, but that it was an isolated
incident carried out by extremists. Although they remain tentative about their
future, they say are not living in fear.

'We are not under threat from
Hamas,' said Jusef, who regularly attends the Greek Orthodox church. 'We are
Christians and they are Muslims - but we are all Gazan, and we share the same
culture.'

Christians have also told me
they feel relatively free to practise their religion in Gaza. Christian women do not wear the hijab, and the
churches remain unguarded. Hamas' general tolerance towards Christianity underlines
their moderation compared to many other Islamic movements. They are not the
Taliban. This Christmas, Gazan Christians will light candles, hang decorations,
exchange gifts, and sing carols, whether they are in Bethlehem or Gaza City, and will no doubt pray for their coming year in the
Gaza Strip to be brighter. Happy Christmas!

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The Gaza Blog

The Gaza blog is a weekly dispatch from the Gaza Strip. Louisa Waugh lives and works in Gaza, and her blogs capture the complexities and challenges of daily life under siege, amidst the aftermath of Israel’s devastating recent offensive.

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